SACRAMENTO, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- A study finds that public schools in California, already the most segregated in the country, are becoming even more so.
The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University said that economic and demographic factors are behind the tendency for black and Hispanic students to be grouped in some schools and whites in others.
"Segregation is growing in degree and complexity as the nation becomes increasingly multiracial," Gary Orfield, lead author of the report, told the San Jose Mercury News.
The report found that even in Silicon Valley, an area with considerable ethnic diversity, the trend has been for some schools to become heavily minority. In 1991, the average black student was in a school where 40 percent of the students were Latino and 40 percent white. Twelve years later, the average was 28 percent white and 50 percent Latino.
The report found that Asian-American students are the most integrated. Researchers also say that schools that are heavily black and Hispanic tend to get shortchanged on resources.
